1859.] WANDSWORTH PLANTS. 333 



pidium Draba, and Sinapis incana, were the most conspicuous. 

 The place at Wandsworth has been visited repeatedly every year 

 since 1851, and the result of every visit has been something not 

 hitherto observed there. 



The origin of the plants growing there was easily determined. 

 The Messrs. Watney are millers, brewers, distillers or rectifiers, 

 and dealers in corn, which they import from all parts ; from the 

 east and south of Europe, from Egypt and America. It was 

 manifest from the appearance of the place, that a part of this 

 open space had been used for screening, winnowing, or removing 

 the dust and refuse from the imported grain. This was a very 

 natural inference, made with a small expenditure of observation 

 and reflection. But in order to make security surer, the ticket- 

 issuer at the steamboat-pier was asked if corn was ever sifted 

 there, for the appearances seen might have been the result of 

 the sweepings of the granaries, laid down there, with other stuff, 

 to help to fill up the hollow. He replied that the men did clean 

 the corn there, which he knew by painful experience, for that 

 when the wind happened to be in the east when this work was 

 going on, he was half-blinded and almost wholly choked by the 

 dust. He was asked if he ever saw any person looking for 

 plants there ; he replied, " None but yourself.^^ 



The mode of the introduction, growth, and distribution of 

 these plants is as simple and intelligible as possible; far too 

 simple for the botanical geographers who are pleased to take this 

 department of the science under their special patronage, and 

 who are as jealous of their pet plans of plant-immigration as a 

 fond lover is of his mistress. A simple historical fact may upset 

 the most profound and ingenious speculative hypotheses. The 

 tidal currents in the Thames, the capability of seeds to resist the 

 action of water on their vegetative power, the vicinity of the bo- 

 tanical collections of Kew and Chelsea, the probability of the 

 existence of a garden or gardens on these spots, where the seeds 

 had dropped and remained in the ground for hundreds of years, 

 are all unnecessary suppositions. There is a shorter and more 

 feasible way of accounting for their existence here. 



It may be asserted, without any risk of contradiction, that if 

 any of the men engaged in the storing, airing, and sifting of the 

 fin^eign corn had been asked, " How comes it that there are so 

 many unusual plants on these heaps of mould and refuse?^' he 



